The first Miss AI has been crowned — and she's a Moroccan lifestyle influencer
After judges of the world’s first AI beauty pageant unveiled 10 finalists last month, the inaugural Miss AI has now been crowned.
Meet Kenza Layli, a Moroccan lifestyle influencer who hopes to bring “diversity and inclusivity” to the AI creator landscape. With nearly 200,000 Instagram followers, and a further 45,000 on TikTok, Layli is entirely AI-generated, from her images to her captions and buzzword-filled acceptance speech. 
Winning Miss AI motivates me even more to continue my work in advancing AI technology,” Layli said in a video of the speech. “AI isn’t just a tool; it’s a transformative force that can disrupt industries, challenge norms, and create opportunities where none existed before… As we move forward, I am committed to promoting diversity and inclusivity within the field, ensuring that everyone has a seat at the table of technological progress.
The competition
The inaugural Miss AI contest opened in spring, drawing entries from some 1,500 AI programmers around the world, according to organizers Fanvue, an influencer platform for both AI and human creators. Layli was created by Myriam Bessa, founder of the Phoenix AI agency, who will receive $5,000 cash, support on Fanvue, and a publicist to raise Layli’s profile. The runners-up were AI contestants Lalina Valina from France and Olivia C of Portugal.
Virtual influencers
While virtual influencers like Lil Miquela or Imma are nothing new, many of the “older” generation required a human touch and were crafted by a team of copywriters and art directors. That is not the case with these contestants, whose images were created solely using programs such as Open AI’s DALL·E 3, Midjourney, or Stable Diffusion, and whose speeches and posts are generated by programs like ChatGPT.
On her Instagram page, Layli expresses a fondness for the color red, advises followers to “invest in yourself daily,” attends professional conferences to exchange ideas and supports her national (unnamed) sports team.
Judging criteria
Ahead of the announcement, competition organizers said that entrants would be judged not only on looks but also on their creators’ use of AI tools, as well as their social media influence. Judges included the AI influencer Aitana Lopez and the pageantry historian Sally-Ann Fawcett.
But experts have also expressed concern about the implications of an AI beauty pageant, as stylized AI-generated images may further homogenize beauty standards.
“I think we’re starting to increasingly lose touch with what an unedited face looks like,” said Dr. Kerry McInerney, a research associate at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge.
“These tools are made to replicate and scale up existing patterns in the world. They’re capturing the existing beauty norms we have which are actively sexist, actively fatphobic, actively colorist, then they’re compiling and reiterating them.”
The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
